National health care systems exhibit a wide range of performance inefficiencies. The United States health care system, in particular, is characterized by a high degree of scientific, financial, and managerial complexity. The United States health care system is a complex matrix of health care providers, consumers, payers, and regulators. It is widely recognized that this system is plagued with problems, exhibiting a tendency toward ever-increasing levels of care and cost, even in the absence of measurable benefit. This evolution in the health care system imposes enormous strains and imposes unreasonable expense.
It is currently believed that better health care, in terms of patient outcomes, is obtained by expanded use of health information technology.
With the widespread availability of inexpensive, capable, and networked computer systems, health care facilities are capable of acquiring and maintaining vast amounts of information regarding patients. At each step during the treatment process, data regarding the patient may be collected and stored. In addition to patient identification information, health care facility databases routinely include data regarding a patient's evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, testing, billeting, prognosis, and discharge. Additionally, the acquired data provides information regarding the location and movement of patients to, from, and within the institution. Sharing of information regarding patients and their care is today a widely accepted practice, even a necessity, in the modern health care environment. The use of computer networks to share information regarding patients and their treatment is well known, and a variety of systems have been disclosed, such as those taught by Engleson, et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,106 and Labounty, et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,871,211. These systems can include automated telemetry which allows, for example, real-time monitoring of particular physiological data which is constantly transmitted to and updated within networked databases in hospital environments.
Missing from current technology, however, are methods for analyzing and optimizing the actual flow of patients to, from, and within the treatment environment, e.g., a modern, complex hospital campus.
By evaluating the detailed characteristics of the health care facility, including all of its departments and sub-departments, it is possible to evaluate, simulate, and forecast patient flow, from admission to discharge, to optimize facility utilization and improve cost-effectiveness while improving the overall quality of health care to the patient. The invention, therefore, is designed to effectively measure patient flow, record information about patient flow, display the information as needed, analyze patient flow data, model the performance of the various health care subsystems within the facility, utilize actual patient flow information and associated histories in the design of simulations of patient flow, forecast the patient flow based on historical and simulated data, and simulate the effects of changes that modify health care systems, accordingly, to improve patient flow.